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Under Construction

The Sole Prop's Sister?

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Furnace Creek, Death Valley, California.

Under here.

November 11, 2007

Video, For Instance
Sunday. It rained through the night, but the sun is out now, and I'm sitting here at the computer around nine after returning from breakfast at the usual emporium. I spent quite a bit of time last evening going through the nine hundred photographs I took on our southern sojourn to the desert and the mountains, futzing with one or another to see how much they changed (went from ho hum to better) by tweaking them in PhotoShop. It doesn't take much, but I'm learning it can make a big difference, and I'm going to build a separate photo stream for each location we visited to see what they look like once I've had a chance to play with them.

They aren't all that good or all that bad - one or two I rather like - but the question, again, is what is there about them that appeals to me and how do I look for that “thing” the next time I'm out there stumbling around with a camera? I like to photograph people more than I do landscapes, but I'm seeing why photographers become so obsessive, returning to re-shoot the same scene over and over, to catch just the right light, just the right color. Sounds like work, actually. I'm not sure I'm cut out for work anymore. Or is that obvious?

I'm writing about taking photographs, of course, even though, given the long hours on the road, my heart wasn't altogether in them. I think the four of us used this trip to think a bit outside our own individual boxes and contemplate where our own lives may be going, each of us going through our own whatever changes. I'm retired, what's that about? Why the strain in this transition? The others are younger, going through a change in employment for starters after years with the same company: where do you go from here, my bucko; what life changes are looming? Dealing with retirement is more than enough for me, they can take care of their own damned transitions.

Are you trying to tell us life is not totally about taking photographs?

Life is simpler when it's totally about taking photographs, although keeping it to photographs doesn't work, of course. There is indeed, I'm afraid, land beyond the still camera perimeter. Video, for instance.


 
The photograph was taken in a bar in Furnace Creek, California with a Nikon D2X mounted with a 17 - 55mm f 2.8 Nikkor lens at 1/5th second, f 2.8, ISO 500.

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